If a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is successful, Americans may stop “springing forward.”
As the clock ticks down to March 9, the day that daylight saving time starts in 2025, legislators on both sides of the aisle are trying to make daylight saving time permanent.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and 16 Senate colleagues introduced a bipartisan bill on Jan. 7, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, that would make the change permanent in the U.S., getting rid of the need to “fall back” and then “spring forward” by an hour each year.
Scott signed legislation in 2018 as governor of Florida that would allow the state to opt out of the practice of changing the time.
“I’m excited to have President Trump back in the White House and fully on board to LOCK THE CLOCK, so we can get this good bill passed and make this commonsense change that will simplify and benefit the lives of American families,” Scott said in a press release shared with The Daily Signal.
The office of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told The Daily Signal that his constituents in the southeast prefer daylight saving time rather than standard time because it provides the most hours of sunlight for their region.
“Americans are tired of the antiquated practice of ‘falling back’ every year,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told The Daily Signal. “Alabamians want more sunshine, and it’s better for our mental and physical health. With the Sunshine Protection Act, we would make daylight savings time permanent. March 9 should mark the first time Americans lock their clocks for good.”
Tuberville said he looks forward to Congress passing the act.
“Alabamians have made it clear that springing forward and falling back should be a thing of the past,” Tuberville told The Daily Signal. “Centuries ago, a time change might have made sense, but it doesn’t today. An additional hour of sunshine during cold winter months would be welcome news for folks on their way to work and kids on their way home from school.”
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., joined seven other Democrats in cosponsoring the legislation. Murray said in a public statement that Americans are frustrated with setting their clocks back and forth every year.
“That growing frustration has also meant growing momentum, across the country and across the political spectrum, for the Sunshine Protection Act—which is why I am excited to reintroduce this bill today with strong bipartisan support and determined to work with anyone I can to finally get permanent daylight saving time passed into federal law,” Murray said in a statement shared with The Daily Signal Jan 7.
Congress has introduced similar bills in the past, but nothing has made it to a president’s desk. One iteration of the act, sponsored by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was unanimously passed in the Senate in March 2022 but held up in the House.
Congress passed the first daylight saving time law—the Standard Time Act—in 1918, according to the Library of Congress. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill into law to conserve fuel and power for the war effort during World War I, only for the law to be repealed the following year.
After another three-year stint of daylight saving time during WWII, Congress approved a standard for the whole country in 1966. The current dates for “springing forward” to daylight saving time and “falling back” to standard time were set in 2005.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., joined his colleagues in the effort to end the time change for good.
“Many Rhode Islanders look forward to that March weekend when we ‘spring forward’ and ditch the afternoon darkness of the cold winter months,” Whitehouse said in a press release. “I’m glad to help lead the bipartisan push to end the antiquated practice of adjusting our clocks twice a year and finally make daylight saving time permanent nationwide.”